The Friendship and The Fear

Yesterday was a typical Sunday. Full of church and work and worship and fellowship with other artist/worshipers as we sat in the room back stage waiting for our time to once again take the stage to lead the congregation in song. What happens in that room during our "down time" is a mystery to most and each week is very different, depending on the characters that are appear (and I do mean characters!) Lot's of bonding and conversation takes place over 6 hours of on and off the stage. 

At one point yesterday, the conversation turned to a song called Friend of God. Now, no offense to the writer, but that is a song that I can hardly stomach singing. The version of it that most people hear is to me - very "bubble gum." I feel that it shows only the "hey let's go fishing together, or to the mall" side of God. One participant in the conversation made a statement something to the effect of "lots of people come to church and need to see that side of God." I assume this is because they only hear about the wrath side of Him from a non-churched person's perspective. 

The conversation continued down that line for just a bit and while I agree to a certain extent that everyone who comes to God needs to know that He is desires to be their friend and have them come to Him with any and everything in their lives, most people forget that He is also to be feared as seen by David's mistake referenced in my previous blog post. 

I always find it humorous when I have a conversation and shortly there after God brings something to my attention in scripture that adds something to the conversation (a true picture of a friend I suppose.) This morning in my reading I read this:

Psalm 25:12-14 Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.

For me, the highlighted verse nails it on the head! How can you have a friendship with someone you do not KNOW and how can you KNOW GOD and not fear Him? They go hand in hand.  If I have just met someone, I would not normally consider them my friend, only an acquaintance. To be a true friend, it takes relationship and to build relationship you have to spend time getting to really know that person. 

In my lifetime, I have had very few people that I would consider friends in the deepest sense of the word. A friendship takes work, it takes time, it takes giving more than you get sometimes, it takes honesty, it takes love and all that takes effort. But when that occurs - you have something very precious and oh how I long to have that kind of friendship with my maker.

Several years ago a singer/song writer named Matt Redman came on the Christian music scene. Most of you would know his as the writer of The Heart of Worship. I had occasions to hear him speak and not only learn from his leading as a worshiper but as a God follower. His heart is one that is not found very often. I imagine him like King David - a man after God's own heart. He wrote a song called The Friendship and The Fear. The lyrics of the song are rich and so I leave you to ponder them today and ask yourself these - On the friendship scale, have much to you give compared to how much you gain? Do you fear the Lord, I mean really fear Him? If you struggle with how to answer these questions, then join me in the ever present quest to know Him better. If you could answer them to your satisfaction fairly easily, then I would challenge you by saying I don't think you KNOW Him as well as you think you do.

VERSE 1:
Show me the way of the cross once again
Denying myself for the love that I've gained
Everything's You now, everything's changed,
It's time You had my whole life;
You can have it all.

CHORUS:

I resolve to give it all;
Some things must die,
Some things must live.
Not, "What can I gain,"
But, "What can I give?"
If much is required when much is received,
Then You can have my whole life;
Jesus, have it all.

VERSE 2:
I've given like a beggar but lived like the rich
And crafted myself a more comfortable cross,
Yet what I am called to is deeper than this,
It's time You had my whole life;
You can have it all.